New cancer center off to strong start at City Hospital

January 27, 2013

MARTINSBURG - Next week will see the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new West Virginia University Hospitals-East Cancer and Infusion Center, where patients receiving outpatient chemotherapy and infusion services will find an all-in-one facility to seek treatment.

"What we had before was fragmented. A patient would come to one office for A, second office for B, third office for C," said Dr. Eric Bonnem, one of the center's two full-time physicians. "If you have cancer and are not feeling too good, to get in and out of a car 20 times is not good for the patient."

The outpatient center - a department of City Hospital - located on the second floor of the Dorothy A. McCormack Center, replaces the outpatient chemotherapy on City Hospital's second floor, which is now being entirely converted to private patient rooms, according to Teresa McCabe, vice president of marketing and development.

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The new West Virginia University Hospitals-East Cancer and Infusion Center, located in the Dorothy A. McCormack Center, will see a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday, with an open house and tours to follow.

The center, which cost $1.3 million, was part of the WVUH-East $3 million Time Saves Lives capital campaign, aimed at soliciting community support to complete the deficit on the $31.5 million expansion and renovation project.

In addition to two full-time physicians, the center is staffed with one visiting physician, RNs, LPNs and administrators, Nursing Director Terry Reser said.

"In the hospital world, this is called a provider-based clinic, where you bring the service that the hospital provided and the physicians who provide the service together in the same suite for the convenience of the patient," McCabe said.

"It's kind of like a physician's office, but on steroids," Reser said.

The approximately 7,200-square-foot center is equipped with its own pharmacy in addition to five exam rooms, one procedure room and 12 infusion chairs - four of which are situated in private rooms.

"This is state-of-the-art," Bonnem said. "You're not going to find anything better than this right here anywhere in the country."

The center has been seeing patients since Jan. 2, seeing between 42 and 63 patients per day, Reser said.

"The numbers are certainly there in terms of how much cancer there is in the three counties of the Panhandle," Bonnem said, citing the state as having the highest smoking rate in the county and subsequently at or near the highest instances of lung cancer cases.

"This is bascially bringing the program up to where it should be based upon how oncology is practiced right now," he said. "There's a pharmacy here, there's a lab here, there are chairs here, the docs are here, the nurses are here, it's promoting teamwork for the patient."

In addition to fulfilling a community need, Bonnem said, the center fulfills the wish of Leonard McCormack, who donated $750,000 in 1998 toward the building campaign that constructed the Dorothy A. McCormack Center, named after his wife who died of cancer.

Radiation oncology therapy services were subsequently established in the Eastern Panhandle, which patients previously had to leave the area for, McCabe said.

"This is the standard that most people are achieving," Bonnem said of other cancer centers.

"That wasn't here before, so this is a gift to the community."

The official ribbon-cutting will be held Thursday at 4:30 p.m., with an open house and tours to follow. For further information, contact the WVUH-East Marketing Department at 304-264-1223.